The Reef

her. It’s kind of sweet. Other flirtations are more to pass the time, I think, and will fade away once the real work begins.
    So far the weather’s been with us. I wonder how it is back home. I imagine the azaleas will bloom within a few weeks, and the magnolias. I miss seeing them, and I miss seeing you. I know you’ll be leaving for your trip to Jamaica soon, so I hope this letter reaches you before you ship out. Maybe we can mesh schedules in the fall. If things go well, my dissertation will be complete. It would be fun to do a little diving back home.
    Meanwhile I should get back. Hayden’s bound to be poring over the charts again, and I’m sure he could use a little help. We don’t have a mail drop until the end of the week, so this won’t go out until then. Write back, okay? Letters are like gold out here. I love you.
    Tate
    She hadn’t mentioned the tedium, Tate thought as she took the laptop back to the cabin she shared with Lorraine. Or the personal loneliness that could strike without warning when you were surrounded by mile after mile of water. She knew a great many of the crew were beginning to lose hope. The time, the money, the energy that was tied up in this expedition were extensive. If they failed, they would lose their backers, their share of the trove, and perhaps most important, their chance to make history.
    Once inside the narrow cabin, Tate automatically scooped up the shirts and shorts and socks scattered over the floor. Lorraine might have been a brilliant scientist, but outside of the lab she was as disorganized as a teenager. Tate piled the clothes on Lorraine’s unmade bunk, her nose twitching at the musky perfume that haunted the air.
    Lorraine, Tate concluded, was determined to drive poor George insane.
    It still amazed and amused her that she and Lorraine had managed to become friends. Certainly no two women were more different. Where Tate was neat and precise, Lorraine was careless and messy. Tate was driven, Lorraine was unapologetically lazy. Over the years since college, Tate had experienced one serious relationship that had ended amicably while Lorraine had gone through two nasty divorces and innumerable volatile affairs.
    Her roommate was a tiny, fairylike woman with a curvy body and a halo of golden hair. She wouldn’t so much as turn on a Bunsen burner unless she was wearing full makeup and the proper accessories.
    Tate was long, lean and had only recently let her straight red hair grow to her shoulders. She rarely bothered with cosmetics and was forced to agree with Lorraine’s statement that she was fashion-impaired.
    She didn’t think to glance in the full-length mirror Lorraine had hung on the door of the head before she left the cabin.
    Turning left, she proceeded to the metal stairs that would take her to the next deck. The clattering and wheezing above made her smile.
    “Hey, Dart.”
    “Hey.” Dart came to a red-faced halt at the base of the stairs. Unlike his name, he was anything but slim and sharp. Pudgy, with all his edges softly rounded, he resembled an overweight St. Bernard. His thin, sandy-brown hair flopped into his guileless brown eyes. When he smiled, he added another chin to the two he habitually carried. “How’s it going?”
    “Slow. I was going up to see if Hayden wanted some help.”
    “I think he’s up there, buried in his books.” Dart flipped his hair back again. “Bowers just relieved me at Ground Zero, but I’m going back in a couple minutes.”
    Tate’s interest peaked. “Something interesting on screen?”
    “Not the Justine. But Litz is up there having multi-orgasms.” Dart referred to the marine biologist with a shrug. “Lots of interesting critters when you get down below a couple thousand feet. Bunch of crabs really got him off.”
    “That’s his job,” Tate pointed out, though she sympathized. No one was fond of the cold, demanding Frank Litz.
    “Doesn’t make him less of a creep. See you.”
    “Yeah.” Tate made her way forward to Dr. Hayden Deel’s workroom. Two computers were humming. A long table bolted to the floor was covered with open books, notes, copies of logs and manifests, charts held down with more books.
    Hunkered over them and peering through black horn-rims, Hayden ran fresh calculations. Tate knew he was a brilliant scientist. She had read his papers, applauded his lectures, studied his documentaries. It was a bonus, she thought, that he was simply a nice man.
    She knew he was roughly